Over 300 of the closed pubs of Bolton from the 19th century to today. Lost but not forgotten. Use your local pub and stop this list from lengthening.

Sunday, 2 August 2015

Oddfellows Arms, 93 Bradshawgate

Metrolands House, built in the mid-sixties on the site
of the row that included the Oddfellows Arms. The Laibaz Indian restaurant is
now number 93 though the size of each of the units on the ground floor of
Metrolands House won’t necessarily correspond to its predecessors, so the
Oddfellows may not have occupied that space.

There were a number of pubs in Bolton named the
Oddfellows. The Ancient Shepherd on Bold Street was initially named the
Oddfellows and a pub by that name still stands on St Helens Road. But the
one at 93 Bradshawgate – across the road from the Balmoral - has a claim
to be the original Oddfellows Arms.

The Oddfellows was a beerhouse that dated back to the
early 1850s. In August 1854 the pub’s owner, Mr J.F Ha.rgreaves, applied
unsuccessfully for a full licence enabling him to sell wine and spirits as well
as beer. It was one of a number of beerhouses that applied to have their
licences upgraded, but they were faced with a petition signed by 3000
ratepayers objecting to the granting of any new licences. The majority of
ratepayers – by and large the middle- and upper classes – rarely drank in
beerhouses, but they claimed that licensing breeches were rife and that many
beerhouses sold stronger alcoholic drinks, anyway. The chairman of the
magistrates, Mr Robert Walsh, dismissed the petition as no-one had come forward
to substantiate the allegations. But Mr Walsh had calculated that there was licence in Bolton for every 106 inhabitants. One for every thousand was enough in
his view. He couldn’t close down the beerhouses without good reason, but he
could prevent them from being licensed to serve anything but beer. He threw out
the application from the Oddfellows and 22 other beerhouses for full licences
and it remained a beerhouse for the rest of its existence.

By 1871, the Oddfellows was in the hands of
35-year-old William J Savage. An Irishman from County Down, he lived at the pub
with his Manchester-born wife Martha. Sadly, Martha died in 1877. William
re-married the following year and on the 1881 census return he is living with
his wife Bridget T Savage and their newborn daughter. Bridget was only 24, but
ten years on from being 35 William was giving his age as just 40. Presumably,
that’s what he was telling his wife. Then again she wasn’t being truthful about
her age. When she died in 1929 her age was given as 70 so she would have been
23 years younger than William rather than 16. William Savage died in 1885.
Bridget married Henry Parkinson and moved to Halliwell. Henry died in 1891 but
Bridget never married again.

Patrick Closick was in charge of the Oddfellows by
1895. By then it had expanded into the premises next door. At the start of the
20th century the pub was in the hands of Samuel Stott.

The Oddfellows was owned by Seeds Brewery of Spring
Lane in Radcliffe but was sold to Magee Marshall and Co. Magees closed the pub
in 1938 and it later became retail premises.

In Bolton Pubs 1800 – 2000, Gordon Readyhough tells us
that 93 Bradshawgate housed Marie’s hairdressers in its final days. Along with
the rest of the row the building was demolished in 1962 and Metrolands House
now stands on the site.

The Oddfellows Arms can just be seen to the left of this 1921 photograph of a delivery wagon belonging to the pub's next-door neighbour, the pie manufacturer Longton's. James Stobbs was the licensee of the Oddfellows at the time and that could be him standing in the doorway of the pub.